Training all of your staff about spinal decompression and how it can benefit your patients, is critical to the success of your decompression marketing. If someone called or came into your office and asked; “What is Spinal Decompression?” would your staff know what to say? No one expects your staff to know everything about decompression, but knowing the basics builds confidence not only in your staff, but in the patients too.
It would probably be beneficial for you and your staff to have a few short meetings in order to go over the basics of spinal decompression. One might assume that if a person works in a chiropractic office, they would know a lot about the human spine. This is not true, the chiropractor knows a lot about the human spine, but unless your staff is in or has completed chiropractic school or human anatomy, they’re probably not going to more than basic biology and of course what they’ve picked up from working in a chiropractic office.
For the first training session, you could explain and have some literature showing how the spine is made up of cushioned vertebrae called discs and the vertebral bones. Herniated or bulging discs are formed when the pressure causes severe pain due to vertebrae being compressed. Explain how one solution is to use spinal decompression to correct the problem. When a negative pressure is created between the vertebra, the discs are forced to move back into place and this process is called spinal decompression. When this occurs the oxygen and blood flow increases and there is more space between the vertebrae. This will put a person’s alignment back into place which reduces the pressure that occurs on the discs. This might be a good time to allow on or more of your staff to be placed on the decompression table, so they can get first hand experience with how it feels.
The second meeting can be a recap with a short Q & A period then onto the next lesson that will explain how spinal decompression is a procedure that’s considered non-surgical and non-invasive and is a recommended for those with certain types of chronic back pain. Herniated discs are the most common types of problems that are treated with this method. Spinal compression is what causes the disc to herniate which then causes the spinal nerve roots to have more pressure on them. One of best ways to fix this is to relieve the pressure that a herniated disc causes. Explain how the goal is to have the bulge to decrease and shrink back to its original size and the spinal decompression procedure helps make this happen.
The third a final meeting can include the learning of scripted questions for the phone appointments and some role play.
Now that you have the staff ready to address questions, handle setting the decompression appointments and set a patient at ease when they come in for their initial exam, it’s time to begin your spinal decompression marketing outside of the office.
Place your spinal decompression ad in the paper with an offer that encourages the reader to pick up the phone today to see if they are a candidate for spinal decompression therapy. From the minute a new patient picks up the phone and makes that call, you and your staff have only a few minutes to set the decompression marketing wheels in motion. This is why it is important for your staff to be ready with a set of questions to ask the caller. When a member of your staff answers that phone they should be in complete control of the call. It is always good to begin the call by asking something like; “how did you hear about our office?” then move into a short script of questions, an interview, that will allow your staff to assess if this patient would be a candidate for spinal decompression.